Online Reputation Management (ORM)

So goes the saying – “All press is good press” but is this really the case when it comes to the internet? If you’re not monitoring your brand name online you could be at risk from negative publicity that could be floating around online losing you clients for a while before you even notice. ORM attempts to keep this in check.

Do you know where and how your brand is being mentioned on the internet? Do you know if your brand generally has a positive or a negative reputation online? Online Reputation Management is like a kind of Online PR used to combat any negative mentions of your brand name and is the practice of ensuring that your brand and your business are perceived in the most positive way possible on the internet and is essential for any business to be able to grow and develop as an online authority.

Your Online Reputation is a very delicate matter and can be damaged through a single posting on a blog or complaint comment in a forum and the hard work you’ve completed to build your brand up can be taken down and then take you a long time to repair. Any such comments can spread all over the world in a matter of minutes and I’m sure we can all recall 1 or more stories we’ve seen in the press of how a simple and quite possibly seemingly innocent comment on a Facebook page about an employer can end up making waves all around the world before landing an employee in hot water if construed to be negative and damaging to the company’s image or profile.

How Do I Keep Tabs On My Brand?

Not only are there ways to monitor how and where your brand is being mentioned online, you can also use the same mediums to improve your Online Reputation. These mediums include;

Social Networking Sites
Online Press Releases
Online Articles published in article directories
RSS Feeds
Blogs
Micro-Blogging Sites
Consumer Review Sites
Forums

and much more….Generally speaking, any online content that is generated by users can be used to monitor your online reputation and be used to positively manipulate the message and news that reaches your potential as well as existing customers.

You could also subscribe to RSS feeds and create Google Alerts for your company name or brand products to ensure that you receive updates on any mentions of you online. These updates can usefully be sent direct to your inbox or to your Google Reader. You can also check out what’s being said in the Blogosphere on Technorati.

How does ORM help rebuild your brand?

ORM can help negate the less positive comments made online about your company and will shift the focus towards the more positive news and reviews giving it a bit of good spin. New content that has an improved spin on any online negativity serves to dilute the bad stuff and get people focusing on the good. It basically does this by building up on positive Social Media and SEO to reduce the impact and exposure of the bad stuff, flushing it out of the rankings.

In our online day and age, it doesn’t take much to reduce or even destroy trust in a company and if you’re not on top of your online PR it could take you a very long time to undo any potential damage.

Use ORM To Your Advantage

Online Reputation Management can be used to your advantage as even though you may be using it to keep bad publicity at bay, it also does the following;

1) Gives you a heads up on where and how your customers and target clients voice their opinions on your brand and also obviously what they think of your company
2) Help you gain insights into your potential customers and how to target them effectively
3) Help reduce your marketing spend as it gives you invaluable news on how and where best to reach out to untapped business potential rather than relying on market research
4) Create postive news and linking back to your company website that also contributes to your link building strategy and can reduce your outsourced link building costs.

Many PR professionals are coming round to the fact that there are huge areas of potential offered by the internet to build on a company’s reputation and brand and online PR is fast becoming an area that many companies understand they need to take control of.

As part of a plethora of digital marketing services, SEO Virgin has used Online Reputation Management to improve on a company’s standing in the internet world. ORM works hand in hand with SEO as many optimisation tactics are used. Contact SEO Virgin for more info if you’re interested in finding out how Online Reputation Management Spain can do for you.